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Articles
You could provide information on your animals
or business... for example, Canyon
Blue Farm had me create a "Pinto Genetics" page
for her site with information on equine color genetics. The website
for Mount
Royal King provides an interesting article on linebreeding.
If you breed colored horses and want an article or chart created
on color genetics, let us know.
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Polls
Like Whispering
Pines Walkers does on their "Offspring" page, you
could provide a "Guess The Foal" poll if your horse
is expecting... put a picture of the stallion & a picture
of the mare, and have them guess the foal's color (I can create
a poll for you with the possible outcomes)... Or, have them guess
if it will be a filly or colt!
Very fun... you can even keep track of the people that guess and
email them when the foal arrives!
You can
also provide polls on other subjects-- maybe ask which of your
horses is their favorite, or how often they ride, what your new
foal should be named, etc. Polls keep people interested.
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Contests
Another idea would be some type of photo
contest, or caption contest (these are always very fun!). Provide
a photo and ask people to send in their captions. Or, ask people
to send in the photos & you can choose. Caption contests are
easier to handle because you won't have to do anything but save
the entries & emails to reply to. I ran a caption contest
for a long time and it was very fun... see CAPTION
WINNERS 1 & CAPTION
WINNERS 2.
You can
email everyone back when you've picked a winner, and they came
come back to your site to see the winning caption. The winner
can receive a little award graphic that they can put on their
website.
Another
contest I used to have was the "Horse Thought Contest".
I would write a little scene-- such as a person trying to trailer
load a refusing horse-- and then people would write it, only from
the HORSE'S point of view! This was so popular that I had to shut
it down because I couldn't keep up with the entries I was receiving.
This is a HIGHLY original idea, mine was the only site at the
time that had it & as far as I know no one has copied me yet.
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Quizzes
Quizzes are always fun -- and you can set
one up so you don't have to do any work-- your visitor will answer
the question & if they get it right, they will get an award.
For example, see my
Guess The Breed contest.
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Links Page
Keep a links page with fresh links on it...
For an example, see my
equine link directory. Allow visitors to add their own link
(and request they link back to you of course, as this will help
your site!).
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Message / Bulletin Board
This will keep people coming back... you
can post contests on it, news & updates, etc. You could even
post a "topic of the month" for people to discuss. For
example, see The
Horse Board.
People
like to share their knowledge... A simple bulletin board can make
a great "Horse Tips" list that people can add on to.
Best of all, you don't have to work... your visitors add content
for you!
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Tips, Quotes, Poems, Jokes, etc.
You can provide horse tips, quotes, poems and jokes for your visitors
to read. For an example, see
this page.
Another
example .... here's a riddle:
It is
in the barn, but not in the field;
It is in the horse, but not in the pony;
It is in the grain, but not in the oats;
It is in the trot, but never in the gallop.
Click
here for answer.
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Games - Custom Games!!
You can make a photo of your horse or your
logo into an interactive slide puzzle, or into a jigsaw puzzle,
like I did here. Or provide a horsey version of tic-tac-toe.
I also
have a version of Snake that is horsey-- instead of a snake or
caterpillar, you're a herd of horses that grows as it eats apples.
Or, how
about a horse word search, like my Horse Breeds Word Search? You
can use whatever you want for the hidden words -- your farm name,
horse's names, stallions names, etc.! The best part is that you
just provide a list of words, and I can set up a word search that
is new every time!
Or, two
more custom games you can add are horse hangman & catch the
pony (they could try to catch one of YOUR horses). Custom games
are something people will never forget!! I have people that come
back again & again because they love these little games, they
are truly unique and horse-related.
To see examples of the above games, view Ultimate
Horse Site's Equine Arcade.
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Interactive Stories
You
can start a horse story & let others add on. These need to
be managed to make sure people don't post anything inapropriate.
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Run a webring
We
run the colorful
horses webring. You can run your own webring for people to
add their sites too. This takes work because you have to manage
the ring, add new sites, etc.
..
